The mainstream media may ignore the awesomely bizarre antics of my personal favorite entertainer (other than P. Wentz, of course), but this was a big year for RA. He reportedly quit drinking, which one would assume should’ve resulted in fewer bloggable eccentricities but fortunately for those of us in the Adams Family (sorry, I just had to), sobriety has only served to clean up and focus his songwriting and live show. All of the insanity seems to be intact, and here’s a look back at all of the reasons why Ryan was my favorite entertainer this year. They’re not all from the past 12 months, but I thoroughly enjoyed each ad nauseum in 2007.

1. RA’s first public foray into hip hop, the timeless “Look Who Got A Website.” First posted at the launch of the (apparently witch-updated) Star Wars-meets-Haight-Ashbury mothership, it was probably our first glimpse of just how not typically tortured the dude really is. We always knew he had some lyrical chops (as is evidenced here by such gems as “His songs are long and sappy/Basically he’s alternative country but crappy”), but here’s where RA shows off his mic skillz, too.

MP3: Ryan Adams - Look Who Got A Website

2. With the dawn of 2007 also came the birth of an official RA hip hop alias, DJ Reggie. Space rap rules, so “Freak It Up:”

3. That awesome Courtney Love-like voicemail left for jaded journo Jim DeRogatis after an admittedly-disastrous 2003 show in Chicago. I was at this show, and it was self-indulgent and sometimes ridiculous, but that’s one of the things I like best about RA - I can’t imagine ever being friends with him, and that gives him the kind of allure that I can imagine people felt about “rock stars” in the mid-60’s.

MP3: Ryan Adams - A Conversation With Jim DeRogatis’ Answering Machine

4. How about turning David Letterman’s desk into a hootenanny, complete with Nellie McKay on mandolin. Can’t imagine how that went: “Hey, let’s throw in ‘Pearls on a String,’ sorta sit-down style. Where can we find some chairs?’ So seemingly intimate in front of millions of viewers, and his voice has never sounded better. Hootenanny at 3:42.

5. DJ Reggie is just one of RA’s genre-bending forays in 2007, the other buzzed-about alter ego being Sleazy Handshake, a proto-metal side project that proves self-importance to be transcendent of musical style. In November he posted a couple of songs, the ballady “Sexual Fantasy” and the 70’s arena rocker “Mr. Smartypants.” Check ‘em out at the Stereogum-coined RySpace.
[Ed. note: In typing “Sexual Fantasy,” I originally tapped it out as “Sexual Fantasty,” which I will now be spreading across the Interweb. That is all.]

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